Before the MESS

Well since I had decided at the last minute to focus on my kitchen cabinets, (only a few of them because sista let me tell you I have many!) I had to go around taking my before pictures.  I like posting them before I begin my cleaning and organizing it helps me in the process of becoming focused with the task at hand.

This week has been a bit challenging. I am getting to a later start than last week but that doesn't mean that I can't do it. Nor that I am procrastinating. The reason is that I have lost an hour to an already sleep deprived nightly routine (having a 4 year old and 4 month old, need I say more?).  I have also had a School Board meeting Monday night which lasted a while and yesterday I was tired so I fell asleep putting my four year old to bed.  Okay so enough about me let's get to the pictures.

Here is one set of cabinets. They are tall they are deep. I am planning to focus on these four because......

 The bottom left is for baking but a total mess, the right side is for storage containers.. can't find them when you need them. The upper right is for whatever I want and liquor. Finally the top left is for baby formula, storage bags and some glass ware. As you can see a super problem.

I have other cabinets in the island that I will work with as well as two under part of the counter facing the south wall in the kitchen. See here.

NOW I am ready to focus on the task at hand. Here is my plan of attack:

1. Inventory what is in there
2. Remove old unused items (give away if non-edible item/ throw away if edible but really not)
3. Organize by "like" uses (partly done but not accessible)
4. Create ways to increase accessibility (labels, group in containers etc)
5. Take pictures of final clean/organized kitchen cabinets.

Originally I stated I was going to focus on my closet in my own room and a hallway closet. I am not ready to enter that battle just yet.  AND I have been so incredible proud of my organized pantry from week one of Project Simplify that I wanted to continue with the same working areas.  So much to improve upon.   Thanks Sis for asking me to join the challenge and thanks Simplemom.net for the challenge itself!

Week Two What's New?

Well it is week two of Project Simplify 2012.  I originally stated that this week was Closets and Cabinets. I really had in mind getting my own closet in my bedroom under controll. However, I got to thinking and had so much fun with my Pantry last week that I would work on organizing the rest of my kitchen. I have a TON of cupboards! So those are the Cabinets I will be working on.

We moved into our home one year ago last April. We moved from a smaller home and smaller kitchen to a larger home and larger kitchen. So what's the problem you ask! Well since we have moved in we placed things where we thought they would be acccessed the best.  We also had a lot of space to just hide things.  I will be organizing these cupbards and utilzing the space we do have differently while still maintaining accessibility and acomplishing this with a budget of almost nothing.

Hmmm: what will I need?  How will I go about tackling this project?  What will make sense? Do I need organizers for drawers and cabinets?  They are long cabinets and deep what will make sense for them? Consider your budget Margo... Okay these are things I will ponder throughout this week! I will report what I came up with then.

I will not dare touch my fridge at this point.  That is a whole project in itself and warrants more time that I can give this week ( between being a full time working mother of two boys, a wife, planning parties and taking continuuing education courses to maintain my licensure) I am squeaking a little bit of time to declutter. 

HERE are pictures of the mess that I will be tackling during the rest of the week.  Thank goodness it is raining because otherwise I might procrasticnate while spending time with the kids outside enjoying the sunshine. However, I just heard the forecast says snow at low levels in the valley and given last week that may be true! So none the less join me again this second week of PROJECT SIMPLIFY 2012 Kitchen cabinets here we come!

(I hope to have the same enthusiasm later this week when I post the after pictures. Read along and see if I manage my goal.)

Lenten Journey OMGosh...

The other day I received a text message from my sister indicating that she was enjoying a  "juicy" burger, somewhere in Seattle! I was at work and decided I was hungry (being a nursing mom does that to you) and though I have been giving up the extras and having more patience for Lent I decided I would join her in that "juicy" burger! So I popped into the car and away I went to the first oops I mean second burger joint... McDonald's. Not my true idea of a "juicy" burger but a burger none the less.

It happened to be a beautiful day, the sun was shining and there were many cars in the drive through. I popped into line and waited. As I pulled up to the menu and speaker I had that "Oh Shit" moment that all of us Catholic's sometimes have, I realized it was Friday. Which meant, for those of you who are not Catholic and observe Lent, I was not supposed to eat meat. Talk about a lesson in self discipline (which happened to be the virtue of the week for our school district).  So in my mind I went back and forth... do I join my sister in eating the meat like product or do I hold stead fast and just order the... fish filet meal?

Oh My Gosh! I so don't like fish from fast food restaurants.  I so don't.  But that was the only choice I had at the moment that the box spoke to me.  I heard, "Welcome to McDonald's may I take your order? Please order when you are ready." Which really means hurry up and order I've got a line to get through the line of cars during the lunch hour.  So I blurted out the order for the FISH FILET.  Oh how I really didn't want that. After I paid for it I choked the sandwich down, savored my fries and Dr. Pepper!  Now I will be practicing no fast food purchases and only rely on myself from home foods which is also going to help the pocket book!

What a fiasco.  I think we all find ourselves in predicaments like that. We for one reason or another get used to doing whatever we want with out a second thought. This reminds me of  Project Simplify 2012 that I am involved in from Simple Mom. I was reading her blog and what she was about and her statements included, "living with intention" among others.  We are embarking on the second week of Project Simplify and for most they will be following Simple Mom's suggestion and cleaning/organizing the kitchen/pantry. Since I created my own list I have already tackled the Pantry.  Later today I will post my before pictures of the second weeks project that I am embarking upon.  I am beginning to live intentionally which fits with in my Lenten journey.  (This years journey is much different than giving up coffee, candy or swearing, which are my usual's! But to live with more patience, with making time for the things that matter, and having self discipline!)

St. Patty's Day trap?

Growing up I never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day other than wearing green so as not to be pinched.  However life changes when you have your own kids. I find myself wanting to create little celebrations and surprises along the way and this includes St. Patrick's Day.  My oldest son is four years old and his Preschool Teacher has assigned a project to be completed and shared in class this week.  The assignment is to create a Leprechaun Trap!  I had never heard of such a thing.  So I started research online (thank goodness for GOOGLE and Pinterest) and I have found that there are many different ways to create a trap.

This was going to be fun.  Ty and I have sat together looking at different pictures of different kid created traps. He would say, "Mommy you like this one the best?"  "I like that one!" With much enthusiasm we new that this weekend would be the time that we would spend building something together as a family!

We knew we needed supplies so I raided my scrap booking materials. I was looking for green and gold paper, stickers, glue, tape and whatever else I could. I didn't want to have to go to the store. this project was going to be done on a budget!  This is what I have found.

We found different colors of green paper, some with polka dots, stripes, and ferns and others just different shades of green card stock.  We also found shiny contact paper that was given to me probably about 10 years ago.  It was perfect.

We found green straws, scissors and a cone tube which my son and husband said we should cut the cone top off to make a hole for the Leprechaun to fall in after climbing up a ladder.  

These were left over stickers from when I was graduating high school (almost 20 years ago) with my maiden name initials.  We took different hole punch shapes and made different gold shape stickers and used all the circle B stickers as well.

We all sat down at the kitchen table (my husband, my son and I) while my other son slept in his crib, and we created the Leprechaun trap!

FINALLY this is what we came up with:

When asked what should our sign say to the Leprechaun, Ty stated, "Go In." So that is what our sign states. We put some gold glitter on two pieces of cotton makeup remover pads and placed on top of the cone. We will put a gold coin up there as well to entice our Leprechaun in. It wasn't complete without cutout clovers and a glitter painted rainbow so we added those pieces as well! It turned out great.  What a wonderful project and boy do I have ideas about what will happen on St. Patrick's Day morning! 

Hots Spot one Completed.. Check!

I can not tell you how excited I am to have  a clean and functioning pantry! Thank you Project Simplify for putting a little pressure to get by butt in gear and tackle some of the places in my home that I have been meaning to get organized.  This week I tackled the Pantry!

BEFORE:  Look at the mess. We had toys, party supplies, important papers, food items, opened but old food items and you name it in our Pantry. It was the "drawer" we all have that we just throw odds and ends into until one day we need to pull the "junk" out and get rid of it.  

I used to think good thing there is a pocket door to hide our stuff. Now not so much!

Here are some of the AFTER THE MESS pics!

WOW look how clean and organized this is compared to its original state blogged the other day! Again can't express my excitement and feelings of accomplishment. So once I completed my task which happened to be on Monday evening I thought to myself, what else could I do to fill my nightly time designated for this task? AND what else could I do to make this pantry "special", "cute" and something even better?  I turned to Pinterest for ideas.  Though my task with the Pantry is completed for the week. I have begun research what else I would like to do to make this "hot spot" even more organized.  

My next task with the Pantry is to print my own labels, decorate it with useful glass jars, get some bins and other functional items for storage and deck out the pantry. This will take more time and planning so that is why I have not completed that portion of the pantry (which I consider in-excess to the challenge).  More on that project when I complete it. So for week one of project simplify I have completed the Pantry! WE (my husband and I) L.O.V.E. love it!  Thanks to Simple Mom for the challenge.  On to next weeks challenge. I will blog more about that on Monday!

Pretty Pantries vs. Functional ones?

Well I am officially working on week one's hot spot, THE PANTRY!  Monday evening I took the time I would normally spend watching T.V. to clean out and begin organizing the pantry. We moved into this house almost a year ago and my pantry has been an easy place to dump things and hide things when in a pinch.  But Monday came and here I was faced with something I have publicly announced I was going to partake in, "THE CHALLENGE." So I must proceed, were my thoughts. I can't fail!  I kept thinking that each week I will give up something that I enjoy to tackle these hot spots and turn this into my Lenten journey as well. ( I love to multitask!)

1. Take visual stock of space and items
2. Remove all OLD/UNUSED and NONE KITCHEN items
3. Plan the shelves: Organize by type of food
4. Ensure accessibility

So here goes.  I worked one shelf at a time. I utilized my island and the landing zone and cleaned out the pantry. Funny but my once packed pantry is now a organized, clean and usable pantry. Project accomplished so I thought. Wow and really in one evening! Who knew.  I wondered how I would spend my time the rest of the week. So I began researching.

Prior to joining  Project Simplify 2012, I have been a Pinterest junkie. I am always looking for ways to organize things.  I had not looked into what an organized pantry might look like and never searched for that topic either. But I typed into Pinterests search bar the words, "organized pantry" and found BEAUTIFUL pantries with glass jars, labels and pretty things.  So now I am spending the rest of the week planning my beautiful pantry. I don't know that I will accomplish that exact task but I will soon enough.

As promised I will take "after" pictures of the organized pantry. I will post those on Friday with yet another posting regarding this weeks hot spot, "the pantry."

A Different Way of Spring Cleaning

My sister (Amy) wanted to know if I would do a challenge with her.. PROJECT SIMPLIFY.. Absolutely. This is the time of year that we all start to spring clean. I have been griping the last two posts about adding anything else into my already packed life and of course cleaning is something that tends to go by the way side (unless of course I have company.) Seriously though join me in this challenge (it is a month long) you never know it might just work for you and your busy life, increase the accountability and be something that you would institute all year long.

This month's hot spots:

• Week of March 5th: Pantry
• week of March 12th: Closest & Cabinets
• Week of March 19th: Office
• Week of March 26th: Kids stuff (clothing, toys & spaces)

 The before pictures of my pantry AHHH!

Each Monday I will post pictures of the "mess" and by Friday you should have a couple blog posts and the end results. That is a high expectation for me but I can take a week to work on one project. slowly but surely! Here goes! Thank you to my sister and to Project: Simplify 2012! Happy Cleaning.